Friday, August 19, 2016

No Longer Topless - This Baby's Got Roof!

Yeah! The arena roof went on this week and so the arena space is now covered. A little breezy yet from the sides, but we're no longer topless.

Raise the roof!

The week began with the building crew framing out the overhangs. We wanted to make sure the rain fall would be off and away from the immediate building area, so we designed the building with overhangs on all sides, following the advice of the builder. The team blocked out the overhangs and also added soffits and wire caging to keep all nest-making critters out of the otherwise enticing nest-making spaces. (Which reminds me, I need to get some owl decoys. Lisa B has them in her barn and says they definitely keep the barn swallows out. So, I want them for the arena - to keep swooping from happening while I ride! LOL. Amazon, don't fail me now!)

Once the overhang blocking was done, the team worked a double-shift day to place the roofing. On Thursday, I left for work prior to 7am, and returned home about quarter to 7pm. The crew was working before I left and still working when I returned home that evening. Making for a 12-hour, roof-attacking day! But they got the whole thing done and even the ridge vent and bases for the cupolas were in. The roof is a weathered wood color - a brownish gray - to match our house and existing barn roofing. It also serves as an accent against the side walls, that are gray trimmed in cream. I'm glad we thought through the coloring detail so that the three buildings on the homestead match and work well together!

Cupolas standing by. You can see how well the colorMatches the existing barn behind them.

The cupolas were delivered to our building site this week as well. It was like Christmas. Scott and I went down to take a closer look and unwrapped them. They are great. I loved this detail when I saw it on other buildings, and I'm very glad we included them in our design. In addition, I went searching for horse weather vanes to top them off. I searched and searched - and believe it or not, I found a Tennessee Walking Horse weather vane! And it was a cool, pretty designed horse and I liked it! So, I bought one for each cupola. Like the crowning jewels on top of the arena. The weather vanes were packed with the cupolas. When we unwrapped them, we had a moment of panick when the weather vane boxes we opened up were pheasants and not the custom TWH editions I had purchased months earlier and had given to the builder. Noooooo! But, we eventually found them after a bit of digging through the crates. Whew!

Halo's, paddock-side view of the arena.

So, we wrap up another building week with the roof in place. It even rained. So I ran out and stood in the arena to listen to the rain fall drumming on the tin roof. Why do I love that sound? It starts soft and then gains urgency as the rain falls harder....and then soft again as the rain subsides. Like waves crashing against the sand. Standing there, in the middle of my arena, I once again got choked up. My arena. My tin roof with the drumming of rain fall. Oh, Scott I'm so, so happy. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I love how you indulge me and know me so well. I'm blessed.